American Power outlook sinks shares

ChrisKraeuter

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- American Power Conversion shares short-circuited in Thursday’s after-hours session, falling 33 percent after the company’s financial outlook failed to connect with investors.

Also active in the late session were Ravisent, 3Com, Palm and Starbucks.

American Power Conversion (APCC) shares fell 15.5 to 31 after closing up 9/16 to 46 1/2.

American Power said it expects fourth-quarter earnings per share to be a few cents higher than the third quarter, bringing the full-year earnings per share range to approximately $1.13 to $1.25.

Analysts surveyed by First Call expected fiscal year earnings of $1.30 a share on average.

American Power reported third-quarter net income of $57.6 million, or 29 cents a share, compared with $42.8 million, or 22 cents per share, for the same quarter last year.

Analysts surveyed by First Call expected earnings of 29 cents a share on average.

Including a pre-tax charge and an after-tax loss, net income was $35.1 million or 17 cents a share.

Revenue for the quarter was $365.7 million compared with $315.5 million for the same quarter last year.

Ravisent Technologies (RVST) revenue decreased 38 percent due to a business-line transition. Shares were immediately halted with a reopen time of 5:34 p.m. EDT.

Ravisent Technologies reported a pro forma loss of $6 million, or 37 cents a share, compared with a loss of $800,000, or 23 cents a share, for the same quarter last year.

Two analysts surveyed by First Call expected a loss of 11 cents a share on average.

Revenue was $4.8 million compared to $7.7 million during the same quarter last year.

According to a company statement, Ravisent is transitioning from a hardware and software licensing business to strictly software licensing.

“Although our financial results fell below our internal projections, we remain confident in the potential for our core business, as well as the strength of our partnerships, recent product introductions and on-going research and development efforts,” said CEO Frank Wilde.

Ravisent shares closed down 5/8, or 8.1 percent, to 7 1/8.

As the closing bell rang, 3Com (COMS) completed its spin-off of Palm (PALM) to its shareholders.

3Com shareholders of record on July 11 received about 1.48 shares of Palm for each share of 3Com owned. Today’s distribution was expected to be about 532 million shares.

Since the value of Palm has now been officially extracted from 3Com shares, the share price is expected to decrease at Friday’s open.

Currently, 3Com’s share price has come off of year-to-date lows of around 39 in late-May to close down 3 5/16, or 4.9 percent, to 64 9/16.

Palm shares closed down 1 1/8, or 3.1 percent, to 35 9/16.

3Com and Palm shares were both very active in the late session, with the share prices of both stocks staying mostly level with closing levels.

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